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Mark Kelly bringing gun message to Sarasota

Mark Kelly

Mark Kelly, husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, testifies in favor of proposed gun control legislation to the Colorado Legislature on March 4 in Denver. Kelly is scheduled to speak Monday in Sarasota.

Published: Friday, March 8, 2013 at 11:19 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, March 8, 2013 at 11:19 p.m.

SARASOTA - Since becoming an activist for gun-control legislation, retired astronaut Mark Kelly’s life has become no less intense and focused than his attention to detail aboard the space shuttle.

Last Monday, the former Navy captain was lobbying the Colorado Legislature to endorse broader background checks for gun buyers. Two days later, he and wife Gabrielle Giffords returned to the Tucson, Ariz., shopping center where she was shot in 2011 and staged a press conference. His message rarely varies.

“Behind every victim,” he told lawmakers in Denver, “lays a matrix of failure and inadequacy in our families, in our communities, and in our values, in our society’s approach to poverty, violence, and mental illness — and, yes, in our politics and in our gun laws.”

On Monday, the 49-year-old, four-time shuttle astronaut is expected to bring that theme to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall as part of the Ringling College Library Association’s Town Hall Lecture Series.

A life-long gun owner who also advocates cracking down on firearms trafficking, and limiting the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, Kelly assumed his latest role as a reformer in the aftermath of the massacre of 26 schoolchildren and teachers in Newtown, Conn.

Critically injured in Tucson by a shooter armed with a 33-round handgun, Giffords, a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, was one of 18 victims, six of whom died. The gunman, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Kelly’s appeal to Colorado politicians was presaged by a shooting spree at an Aurora multiplex theater last July in which 70 movie-goers were shot, 12 of whom were killed. Alleged shooter James Holmes, described as mentally ill by his attorneys, blasted his victims with a shotgun, an assault rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.

Kelly’s crusade has triggered rigorous criticism from Second Amendment supporters, but the Desert Storm combat veteran has endured far worse than rhetoric. He flew 39 missions during the Gulf War off the USS Midway.

Selected for the astronaut corps in 1996, Kelly made four trips to the International Space Station, where his twin brother Scott is expected to spend a year in orbit as a life sciences guinea pig beginning in 2015.

In 2003, following shuttle Columbia’s fiery re-entry accident, Kelly and an FBI agent found the body of rookie astronaut Dave Brown in a wooded area of rural Texas.

Giffords, Kelly’s wife of five years, resigned from Congress last year to continue her rehabilitation.

“Our future certainly will involve service again,” Kelly wrote in an autobiography “Gabby: A Story of Courage, Love and Resistance,” released last year before the Newtown massacre. “While we are not sure what form that will take, we do know that it is out there, somewhere.”

<p><em>SARASOTA</em> - Since becoming an activist for gun-control legislation, retired astronaut Mark Kelly's life has become no less intense and focused than his attention to detail aboard the space shuttle.</p><p>Last Monday, the former Navy captain was lobbying the Colorado Legislature to endorse broader background checks for gun buyers. Two days later, he and wife Gabrielle Giffords returned to the Tucson, Ariz., shopping center where she was shot in 2011 and staged a press conference. His message rarely varies.</p><p>“Behind every victim,” he told lawmakers in Denver, “lays a matrix of failure and inadequacy in our families, in our communities, and in our values, in our society's approach to poverty, violence, and mental illness — and, yes, in our politics and in our gun laws.”</p><p>On Monday, the 49-year-old, four-time shuttle astronaut is expected to bring that theme to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall as part of the Ringling College Library Association's Town Hall Lecture Series.</p><p>A life-long gun owner who also advocates cracking down on firearms trafficking, and limiting the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, Kelly assumed his latest role as a reformer in the aftermath of the massacre of 26 schoolchildren and teachers in Newtown, Conn.</p><p>Critically injured in Tucson by a shooter armed with a 33-round handgun, Giffords, a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, was one of 18 victims, six of whom died. The gunman, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.</p><p>Kelly's appeal to Colorado politicians was presaged by a shooting spree at an Aurora multiplex theater last July in which 70 movie-goers were shot, 12 of whom were killed. Alleged shooter James Holmes, described as mentally ill by his attorneys, blasted his victims with a shotgun, an assault rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.</p><p>Kelly's crusade has triggered rigorous criticism from Second Amendment supporters, but the Desert Storm combat veteran has endured far worse than rhetoric. He flew 39 missions during the Gulf War off the USS Midway.</p><p>Selected for the astronaut corps in 1996, Kelly made four trips to the International Space Station, where his twin brother Scott is expected to spend a year in orbit as a life sciences guinea pig beginning in 2015.</p><p>In 2003, following shuttle Columbia's fiery re-entry accident, Kelly and an FBI agent found the body of rookie astronaut Dave Brown in a wooded area of rural Texas.</p><p>Giffords, Kelly's wife of five years, resigned from Congress last year to continue her rehabilitation.</p><p>“Our future certainly will involve service again,” Kelly wrote in an autobiography “Gabby: A Story of Courage, Love and Resistance,” released last year before the Newtown massacre. “While we are not sure what form that will take, we do know that it is out there, somewhere.”</p>